by Steven Starry
This is a book review for young teachers of English as a second
language. “Practical English Usage” was written by Michael Swan
and published by OUP in 1980. It’s one of those books that tends
to show up on TEFL course reading lists and, in fact, I got
mine back in 1993 when I did my own CELTA TEFL course.
Basically, this reference book is to grammar what a dictionary
is to vocabulary. On the one hand, that means that the information
is rather condensed without much in the way of exercises. On
the other, that means that it makes about as much sense for
teachers to read this book from cover to cover to learn grammar
as it does for them to read a dictionary from cover to cover
to learn vocabulary. In any case, as a teacher of English, you
will have to refer to both a dictionary and grammar book at
some time or other, and you could do worse than to have this
particular reference book in your own personal library. This
is even truer not only because it deals with the grammar that
students need to learn and teachers need to teach, but also
because it deals with some of the most important vocabulary
points.
These days, after 16 years of English teaching, it’s perfectly
clear to me that this book is enormously useful and necessary,
even if reading over about 5 pages at a time will probably be
as unbearably boring for you as it is for me. Even so, I don’t
think most of us had any idea before we started about either
what “grammar” really is or about how important it is with regard
to learning and teaching English. Like me before I started,
you may know how to use English well enough, but in spite of
that, you may not know how to explain or describe why you know
what you know when problem language points crop up in action
on the job.
Let me give you a couple of examples of two typical language
points covered in this book that I’ve had to explain in just
about every one of my English classes.
First, the difference between “see,” “look” and “watch:”
Students will sometimes make a mistake and say something like,
“I saw or watched the computer” or “I looked at the football
game.” Telling them that it’s incorrect and what is correct
is easy enough, but you’ll have to explain why it’s wrong and
give some examples, at least once per student or class. What
I tell students is that we usually use “look at” for when you
“actively” use your eyes to observe an object that’s not moving,
we use “watch” in a similar way for observing activities in
progress like on TV, races and games, and so on, and we use
“see” for things we see accidentally. “See” is also used for
movies in particular, though “watch” is also ok. There’s more
to it than that and it’s all in this book, but basically that’s
what I tell most of them and then I usually try to practice
it in some way. For example, I might ask, “what word do you
use for a bird that flies by?” or “. . . for somebody who walks
by?” or “. . . for a picture on the wall?”
Second, the difference between “interested” and “interesting,”
and “bored” and “boring:”
Students will also say something like, “I didn’t enjoy something
or other. I was boring.” In which case, you’ll have to correct
them and point out that the word “bored” with the “-ed” ending
is correct because the “-ed” ending indicates a feeling and
the “-ing” ending indicates what produces the feeling. Then,
I will also give some examples and practice it by eliciting
something like the following dialogue, “how do you feel if you
watch Big Brother? Bored. Why? Because it’s boring.” and so
on. By the way, I’ll also usually compare “interesting” and
“interested” to “interesante” and “interesado” in their own
language, pointing out that the “-ing” ending is similar to
the “ante” ending in Spanish and the “-ed” one is similar to
the “ado” one; this I cannot do with the “bored” and “boring”
endings in Spanish as they are different from the endings for
“interested” and “interesting.”
There are tons of language points like these that don’t just
crop up as mistakes by students in class of course, students
will actually request explanations of various points as well.
Over the past couple of months, for instance, I’ve had various
students request that I explain modal verbs in general and the
difference between the past simple and the past continuous,
as well as the difference between “will” and “going to,” and
so on.
If you’ve never taught English before, you might think that
English teaching is really all about continuously drilling sentences
until they sink in or something like that, but bear in mind
that there’s a lot more to it than that. For example, students
will usually want to know why they have to use the language
that you want them to use. The fewer the explanations you are
able to give, the more credibility you may lose, and the more
challenging your classes may become.
And by the way, lots of these language points will pop up in
job interviews as well. Employers of English teachers will often
want to test their prospective employees to see if they will
be able to handle these explanations. I’ve occasionally been
interrogated myself about the differences between the first,
second and third conditionals, or “have to” and “must,” amongst
other language points.
Lower-level TEFL courses usually leave most of the English
usage part up to the teachers, but you’d do well to take it
for granted just like me that it is enormously important for
you to know this sort of thing well. I would think that most
employers will take it seriously, and I know that even if most
students aren’t really much more aware than their future English
teachers are about how important a good knowledge of English
usage is, if their teachers aren’t up to the task, believe me,
there will be hell to pay. In my opinion, being able to refer
frequently to a book like “Practical English Usage” is an absolute
requirement for any English teacher.
This is a Youtube video book review by Steven Starry for new
English teachers about "Practical English Usage" by
Michael Swan, published by Oxford University Press in 1980.
Right-click and select
"save as" to download: 
Practical English Usage – A Book Review
